LAST WEEK: WHAT’S THE NEXT STEP FOR AVONDALE ESTATES DEVELOPMENT?
Last week we wrote about downtown Avondale Estates, where little over a decade ago a company named Century Realty began planning a 375,000-square foot mixed-use development anchored by a Publix grocery.
With the clarity and detail of slow-motion car crash it all fell apart. Today Avondale remains something of a concrete ghost town with 20 under-developed or undeveloped acres. This has been exacerbated in recent weeks with the permanent closings of Ray’s Indian Originals (the city’s oldest business) and The Bishop restaurant, along with the temporary closing this week of the popular Pallookaville Fine Foods.
There has long been a tension in this city of 3,360 between those representing tradition and those pushing for change. But nobody argued with former Mayor Ed Rieker a while back when he proclaimed that downtown needs about 1,000 new visitors a week.
So we asked, how can Avondale Estates become a shopping and eating destination?
Here’s what you said:
What it will take to revitalize downtown Avondale Estates is people in city government with vision and drive. That's the easy part. Changing the attitude of residents who "want things to stay the way they are" is challenging. Too many in AE believe any change adversely affects them. The idea that change can be positive is foreign. That's what I've taken from the community meetings, along with snide remarks concerning people like me who recently moved just outside AE city limits, suggesting we're undesirable. Most of us want to be part of AE and want to spend our money close by. Most would welcome being incorporated into AE. We would love to see new businesses move into empty buildings and have the hole near Laredo Avenue developed. That would be the positive change AE needs. But all the vision and drive won't get it done until this leave-everything-the-way-it-is mindset goes. — Stephen Byrne
I moved to Avondale from Decatur where I lived during the big growth phase.
— Avondale’s physical configuration acts against business density. Having businesses lining one road (College/Avondale Road) means that solid businesses are spread out along the mile or so without any central location. This reduces the draw of the area as any kind of destination where you might go and walk around and discourages businesses that might benefit from pedestrian traffic. Contrast this with the history in Decatur. Anchor businesses like the Brick Store really made the square more attractive for other businesses, and so on. On the other side of Decatur (west side), development really waited for a while until there was increasing residential density.
— Avondale actively opposes increasing residential density. While you can build town center location without residential density, that really adds a lot of drag to the process. If they could somehow get greater density around the Tudor square, it would probably do a lot for their chances of getting a solid set of businesses.
— Physical orientation of the existing buildings is terrible. In many places, the buildings are very close to the road (Tudor square particularly). I think they should get rid of the angled parking on Avondale road in front of the buildings, expand the sidewalk into a more broad patio area, and get some trees to block the intense sun there in the summer. — Daniel Spieler
A growing number of metro Atlanta teachers are seeking reading instruction through a grassroots effort called Reading Is Essential for All People, known as REAP. The non-profit provides free training in the foundations of reading instruction to general classroom and special education teachers.
The need exists primarily because, surprisingly, most teachers leave college without specific instruction on how to teach reading.
To provide this free, evidence-based instruction, REAP relies largely on donations or, to a lesser degree, professional development funding from school systems.
In the past two years about 140 Gwinnett public school teachers applied to participate in the program. Donations were available for only 36 to receive training.
Awareness of the program’s effectiveness, and teachers clamoring for the training, has caught the eye of several metro school systems. Atlanta Public Schools is fully funding training for 32 kindergarten through 4th grade educators this fall. Cobb County is also providing funding for a growing number of teachers. Fulton County is willing to pay for subs for teachers seeking the training during class time. Cherokee County offers similar reading instruction through the school system.
Funding in Gwinnett has been a bit harder to find. As with most local school systems, Gwinnett offers professional development opportunities geared around existing curriculum that are supported by the National Staff Development Council and the Georgia Staff Development Council.
While the program offered through REAP is not currently recognized by these councils, Gwinnett has shown support for teachers seeking this instruction independently.
Should Gwinnett and other school systems provide funding for a program like REAP? Or should teachers stick to school-sanctioned training?
Send comments to communitynews@ajc.com.
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